Solomon Simplicity on a Sunday

Today Carl & I discussed taking the girls to the big city of Joplin, MO to eat out and see a movie. Unfortunately, no decent family movies have been released lately, so we've stayed in and resorted to Carl's creativity. He came through again. What you see above is "Blocks in a Box," the Carl version of pool hall shuffleboard.

Many people talk talk talk about simplifying their lives. Martha Stewart even has a magazine devoted to it, though I wonder: if a magazine about simplifying is cluttering your house, probably alongside other magazines, school papers, piles of bills and miscellaneous mail...are you really simplifying?

Saturday at the Solomons'

The picture above reflects a typical Saturday at the Solomons'. While I hibernate inside reading, writing my blog, or cleaning (do you believe that last one?), Carl works on SOMETHING in his shop. Sometimes he creates something fantastic, like a piece of furniture. Other times he works on the neverending "building project" or home maintenance projects. Once he spent several hours creating a book stand for his Nordik Track. I don't think he has ever used the book stand. Clearly, I'm not married to a couch potato.

Youth deer season opened this morning, triggering an annual craziness in Carl. So today he spent his Saturday morning building the deer decoy you see in the picture with Hannah. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a deer decoy.

After several hours of work, Carl excitedly called all us Solomon girls in to see his latest creation. Hailey took one look and said, "It looks like an aardvark." I have to agree.

Interruptus Muchus

Following is a conversation I had on my cell phone (on a hands-free headset, of course) with my sister, Ashley, this afternoon. After getting a busy signal several times, I finally got through (you know, as stay-at-home-moms, all we really do is talk on the phone and watch soap operas).

Me: "Yea! I finally got through!"

Ashley: laughter

Me: "I'm driving Hannah to ANOTHER Dr. appointment and just wanted to kill some time. Do you have time to chat?"

Ashley: "Yeah. Let me get my kids down for a nap and I'll call you right back."

Me: "Yeah, yeah. I've heard that one before. Meanwhile, two hours later..."

Ashley: laughing "I'll call you right back."

Surprisingly, five minutes later:

Ashley: "I got your e-mail."

Me: "The YouTube video? The one with the lady singing everything she says to her children in a 24-hour period, in a 3-minute ditty to The William Tell Overture?"

Ashley: "No, the e-mail about building a cathedral. What are you doing???"

Me: "Who are you talking to?"

Ashley: "Ethan." (muffled conversation in the background)

Me: "What's going on?"

Ashley: "Ethan just went to the bathroom and now he needs to go again." To Ethan: "Hurry up and get back to bed!"

Hannah: "Tockuh Ashee?"

Me: "You can talk to Ashley when I'm done."

Hannah: "Oh. OK."

Ashley: "I didn't get to read all of it..."

Me: "...but you got the gist of it. That was good, wasn't it?"

Ashley: "Yeah. I've seen a better rendition of the YouTube video you e-mailed me, though. In the one I saw, a guy sings about bedtime to the tune of Pachelbel's Canon in D."

Me: "Oh yeah? How does that go?"

Ashley hums a tune, then breaks her humming with, "NOW what???"

Muffled voice in the background.

Me: "Who is it?"

Hannah: "Tockuh Ashee???"

Me: "In a little bit, Hannah." To Ashley, "I don't see how anyone could sing a ditty to that. I don't think you have the right song."

Ashley: "It's Isaac. Now HE needs to go to the bathroom."

Ashley hums another tune as she tries to find the YouTube video online. More muffled voices in the background. Ashley really needs a mute button.

Me: "What did he say?"

Ashley: "He wants me to close the bathroom door because there are monsters in the bathroom. I ought to tell him that the monsters only get you when you take longer than five minutes in the bathroom during naptime." To Isaac "Now don't get up again!"

Me: "Or you could tell him they come up through the toilet after five minutes."

Ashley: "That's just mean. He'd never sit to potty again."

Hannah: "Tockuh Ashee? Me???"

Me: "IN A LITTLE BIT, HANNAH!" To Ashley: "Now, what were we talking about???”

Ashley and I both have college educations. Of course, Ashley actually earned a degree. I just have hours and hours of college credit with nothing to show for it. Nevertheless, this is how 85% of our conversations go.

How did we get reduced to THAT?

Surprise Treat for Me!

Since placing Katie and Hailey in public school after home schooling them for four years, I have had many people ask me, "Do you know what to do with yourself now that the girls are in school during the day?" Suppressing a strong desire to roll my eyes, I just say, "No problem whatsoever." I have more started-but-not-completed projects than one person should have in an entire lifetime. I have eleven years of unceasing companionship to make up for. Heck, going to the bathroom uninterrupted is itself a treat.

So, yes, I know what to do with my mornings while Hannah is also in school. Afternoons are another story. Hannah naps every day, but her moods are unpredictable once she awakens. Her mood swings have been downright exhausting the past several months. So imagine my surprise--and my delight--when my friend, Sheri, offered to pick up Katie and Hailey after school so that they could play with Jenna...AND she took Hannah too!!!

This is better than Calgon! Thank you, Sheri!

Blue Conclusion...TMI !!!

Note: If you don't read yesterday's (Sept. 21) post first, this one won't make sense.

If "what goes up must come down" is a true statement, then is it also true that "what goes in must come out"?

Let me ask more directly: If blue food coloring goes INTO a child, what do you suppose comes OUT? Answer: not green urine (though blue and yellow do make green).

I'll leave the rest to your imagination...no pictures included this time.

Color of the day: BLUE

I awoke at 4:30 this morning when Carl, in a sleepy haze, threw the bedroom door open into the wall with a BANG! When I realized I wouldn't return to sleep, I hobbled down the hallway, accidentally awakening Hannah in the process. Together we went to the kitchen where I fixed myself a cup of coffee and proceeded to my computer. It greeted me with, "Your computer has saved itself from a fatal device driver error." My computer has been popping blue screens frequently now, like it did before my hard drive crashed just over a year ago. Consequently, I'm especially concerned out about backing it up, so I decided at 4:30 a.m. that I would attempt to back up a few documents. This sounds simple, but evidently I'm more technologically challenged than I realized. At about 5:00 I finally completed the backup process when Hannah came in from the kitchen looking like this:

What IS that????

Blue food coloring. Not the cheap, liquid food coloring, but the higher-quality, pasty food coloring--the same food coloring that has been in the same location in my cupboard for over a year now. Why she chose today to find and play with it, I'll never know. I found blue food coloring on my white tea towel, blue food coloring on the floor, blue fingerprints everywhere.

The fun didn't stop there. In fact, this was merely foreshadowing. Something should have clicked, such as, "Hmm, maybe I need to be more aware of Hannah's location, more attentive."

Nah. Later that same morning as Carl installed a CD changer in an Expedition in our back yard and I picked up dirty clothes throughout the house, I heard someone drive down our gravel drive. When I looked out the window, I spotted a local man in blue in his cop cruiser. Curious, I headed outside, only to be greeted by a naked Hannah on our back patio. She's STILL potty training and when she has an accident, she strips...wherever. Give that girl a horse and she'd be our personal "Lady Godiva."

"Hannah! Get inside and get some panties on!" I scream-whispered as I limped past her to see what the officer wanted. Evidently a concerned citizen had called the police to report an unattended child in our vicinity. Carl had been outside most of the morning, so we’re still confounded as to who called and why. The kind officer shrugged his shoulders and drove off. I, however, obsessed about the whole thing for the next couple of hours. I even drove to the police station to ensure that everyone understood that Hannah may LOOK 2-years-old due to her short stature (a result of the Dandy-Walker?), but she is nearly 5. At that age, I occasionally allow my children outside without direct supervision. How about you?

Blue screens, blue food coloring, blue suits. Someone please give me some blue sky.

Needle Weenie

It's that time again: time to give myself a Humira injection. Actually I should clarify: it's time for Carl to give me a Humira injection.

Since I developed arthritis at age 20, I have sampled the gamut of treatments: malaria drugs that made my palms itch, cancer drugs that did nothing, antibiotic treatments that I didn't give enough of a chance and some really terrific pain meds. I've tried herbs, "alternative medicine," faith healers, visualization...you name it, I've tried it. I even took a trip to Lourdes, France hoping to find healing in the waters. You may think I'm nuts, but you try chasing three kids with a whacked-out hip--you become willing to try just about anything.

Hee hee. I just read my last sentence and I see myself madly screaming while flailing some prosthetic hip at my kids. I need to work on my grammar.

So, now I've reached the realm of last resorts, what I call the "big guns." Some fantastic disease-modifying drugs exist now that, if they don't totally destroy my immune system and give me cancer, will slow or stop the arthritis and give me a better quality of life.

The problem Other than the cancer bit)? The big guns require needles and I am a huge needle weenie. I bow to all you diabetics who shoot up daily. I only have to inject myself once every other week and I get weak just thinking about it. Carl and I have succeeded once at giving me an injection...after three margaritas and a wonderful little anti-anxiety pill. I told that to my rheumatologist and he gave me a funny look...so I told him I was only joking.

The second time we prepared for the injection (prepared means I again drank several margaritas and blew an entire evening by being freaked out), my sister and her husband were visiting. The injection itself is pretty simple. The medicine comes prepackaged in an injection pen with red caps labeled "1" or "2" on each end. Carl pulls off the caps, pinches a blob of fat on the top of my thigh (real hard to find these days--ha!), puts the "1" against the blob, then presses the "2." The pen does the rest as long as I hold still. Well, Carl never has been one to read instructions. As I clinched my eyes closed and held my breath, Carl placed the pen on the blob while Ashley and Ed (my sister and her husband) watched. I heard the "click" of the pen and thought, "Wow, that's not as bad as I remember it." At the same time I heard Carl and Ashley both yell something indistinct. I opened my eyes to discover that Carl had the pen upside down and had injected his thumb, then sprayed Ashley with the medicine that remained after he jerked said thumb away. Frankly, I was relieved.

So, this time we'll be reading the instructions. Maybe I'll even keep it down to one margarita.
...Nah.

Disclaimer: yes, I know all about the effects of drinking on the liver, especially since these wonderful medications are pretty hard on the liver.

A Day at the Lake

Knowing that our opportunities to take Carl's sister, Stacey's, boat to the lake were running out, the Solomon family headed to Big Hill Lake Sunday. With current registration in the boat's glove box (we were escorted off the lake last week for not having a registered watercraft) we started our day.

Carl grew up on the lake and has water skied since he was 5. I don't know squat about lake life. I stink at backing up a trailer, I have no clue how to drive a boat and I have the dexterity of a toddler taking her first steps...and that's on flat LAND. You should see me trying to walk around a boat. Ha! My limited experience includes pulling Carl skiing twice now and I'm certain the only reason he was able to get up and stay up was because of his skill. A less-skilled skier would have dislocated shoulders because I keep forgetting to take the slack out of the rope before I "Hit It!" In my defense, just before pulling Carl I had asked him if he was ready, to which her replied, "Ready!" When I reminded him of that, he said, "I WAS ready, but YOU weren't. You have to take the slack out of the rope." He didn't add "dummy" out loud, but he might as well have.

Carl chose not to ski yesterday. I wonder why.

At the beginning of this summer Carl informed us that one of his dreams is to be out windsurfing with Katie and Hailey. That's great with me. I prefer that the girls do cool things with their dad (like in this picture) rather than with some hormonal young boy...though I know those days are coming.


















Carl & Hailey on Father's Day 2007

Anyhow, Carl spent hours devising a way for the girls to practice with this windsurfer on dry land only to discover that the sail was too heavy for them to lift. Consequently, he spent two days creating a smaller sail out of an old blue tarp, which he then attached to a small windsurfer board that he has salvaged twice from my efforts to send to the dump. RATS! More fuel for his I-can't-throw-that-away-I-might-be-able-to-use-it-someday mentality that has our garage overflowing.

Finally the day arrived--today. Katie and Hailey tried out the homemade windsurfer and it was a HIT! They were both able to stand up and stay up for a good amount of time. That's as far as they got for the day. As an aside: I have bribed Katie to water ski by telling her she can quit piano lessons if she learns how to water ski without complaining. She took me up on that one IMMEDIATELY. Now she's informed us she would rather windsurf than water ski. Too bad. She gets to learn both.

How did I get a daughter that hates team sports AND music???

KATIE & HANNAH ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE LAKE

Katie eats LEAVES! EEWWWW!!!

Yesterday Katie had quite a day at school. Even though she is in excellent physical condition and built like a cute little gymnast (that sounds much better than “a brick house” for my now-11-year-old), Katie despises sports. Carl and I can’t figure it out. The 5th grade class played whiffle ball in P.E., during which Katie caught the whiffle ball with her left eye. She succeeded, with much effort, to NOT cry (I’m sure that’s sudden death in 5th grade) and the class proceeded to lunch.

Being the “food nazi,” I pack the girls’ lunch every day. That day I packed their favorite: whole grain macaroni with homemade cheddar cheese sauce and a spinach salad topped with grated cheddar cheese. They’ve taken it before and have handled the “EWWW, what’s THAT???” question already about the funky-looking mac-n-cheese, but evidently the spinach leaves were the target at the table yesterday. “What’s that??? You look like you’re eating LEAVES! Katie’s eating LEAVES!!!” As I understand, the whole table chimed in...maybe even the entire lunch room. OK, I’m really exaggerating there. Katie struggled AGAIN not to cry, but the principal noticed and asked Katie what was wrong. Katie ducked her head behind her lunch box (at least she DOES have a “cool” lunch box to duck behind) and said what all 11-year-olds are masters at saying: “Nothing.” She picked up her cool lunch box and went over to sit with her sister.

Later the lead teasing girl approached Katie and said, “Am I the one that made you cry?” Katie hesitated, but then said no. The little girl apologized right then and told Katie she didn’t mean to make her cry. All ended well. I had previously made arrangements to have a friend of theirs, Jenna, come home with them after school, a ride during which I got to hear the whole story from 3 juvenile perspectives. Jenna told us that one other little girl said, “At least Katie Solomon will never be FAT!” Hmmm, is that because most children would rather starve than eat the weird stuff Katie brings for lunch, or because the food is healthy??? I asked, “Someone stuck up for Katie?” Jenna responded, “I would have stuck up for her if I would have been there!!!”

Ah youth, when your worst problem is being accused of eating leaves. That very same day I spoke with a lady who had lost an inch from her waist because she had no money and hence no food. Literally. So, in the grand scheme of things, being teased for your food doesn’t rank very high on the “problem” scale next to having NO food. Surprisingly, the girls agreed.

Well, it’s 6:24 a.m. Saturday and I’ve promised the girls I would take them to the city-wide garage sales this morning. It’s raining. What was I thinking???

White Water Rafting

Have you ever been white water rafting? Me neither. Well, actually Carl and I went rafting on our honeymoon, but very little white water happened and besides, that's been (thinking....) 14 years ago. Anyhow, I can imagine white water rafting, although--barring a miraculous healing from arthritis--I will probably never experience it.

My life feels like white water rafting. Things start out at an even pace and I think, "This is no big deal. What's all the fuss?" Next thing I know, we round a corner and BAM! The boat's rocking, I'm white-knuckling it and gritting my teeth, hoping simply to stay on the boat. I have no finesse and often manage to look like a complete novice (read "idiot"). I'm sure everyone's life is like that on some level. Maybe not the "idiot" part. Having a "special" child (I'm still trying to come up with an eloquent way to say "child with a congenital brain defect") and having rheumatoid arthritis both exaggerate the features of my float downstream.

At times I think the white water will never cease. That's how the past two weeks have been: doctor appointments for children, dentist appointment for me, sick hubby (and that energizer bunny is NEVER sick), special appointments for my special girl who--by the way--pottied her pants twice in one day at school which required a special trip and special conference with the teacher, a birthday party at school that you've read about, and I'm sure I've forgotten something. Today, though, I've reached a calm place. Aaaahhhh. In fact, a friend who is also my mail carrier just peeked her head in the door to say hello at the same time Hannah Savannah ran behind me into the kitchen and ran back out again. I'm in such "que sera sera" (jeez, I have no idea how to spell that despite 3 semesters of French in college...thinking...20 years ago???) mode that Hannah's little trip didn't even blip on my radar.

My friend said, "Bagel? Is that OK?"

Me: "What? Yeah, whatever."

It looks like Hannah's having onion bagels and milk today...and whatever else happens to be within her short-statured reach.

Right now I'm just going to row my boat ashore and take a little siesta.

Katie's birthday

Those who know me know that I have home schooled my two oldest girls until three weeks ago. At that time I enrolled them in 4th and 5th grade in our small town's public school. My four-year-old is in her third year of pre-school, but she's an entire blog unto herself.

It's Katie's birthday and she's going to a new school, so I wanted to make a good impression by taking some kind of treat to her classroom. My good friend suggested I buy cookies from the local cookie shop--all the same kind to avoid the "I wanted CHOCOLATE CHIP not oatmeal!" argument. By the way, we may live in Podunk, Kansas, population 2000 (almost), but our local cookie shop owner has been featured on THE Food Network. Bringing cookies from her shop would be "a good thing." So, did I take my seasoned-parent friend's advice? Of course not. Instead I saw an idea in Martha Stewart's magazine about baking cupcakes in ice cream cones.

I have learned one lesson from past baking experiments: do not wait until the last minute to try something new. So, yesterday after school the girls and I did a practice run of cupcake cones, with decent success. I thought, "Wow! Maybe I really CAN be Martha." I cleaned up that mess (a big surprise to all who know and love me) just in time for Carl to come home from work.
He took one look at my practice cones and said, "Those aren't full enough."

"Well, yes, they could be more full, but I need room to frost them." I said, then added with a little irritation, "They're fine."

"Here, let me help you."

At this point, I was running out of steam and still had plenty left to do, so I went with it. We filled those cones, not to the brim, but pretty doggone close. Somehow I knew my dreams of Marthadom were coming to an end.

At 8:00 last night I pulled the cupcake cones out of the oven. Goodbye Martha. The cake had poofed up nicely at first, but then proceeded to ooze over the sides of the cones and dollop sadly onto the cookie sheet below, like little poopies. Just scrape it off you probably think, as I did. But scraping off the cake resulted in removing half of the mushy-underneath-cone as well.

8:00 is an important time in podunk, KS. The grocery store closes at 8. Dollar General is closed. Heck, I think the gas stations are even closed. If you run out of gas here after 8:00, you'll be sleeping in your car until morning. No motel. Nothing. On the good side, it's a safe neighborhood and you probably could leave your windows rolled down and/or your doors unlocked. But that wasn't going to help me make more cupcakes.

Why didn't I just listen to my cookie-advising friend in the first place? Now I had a destroyed kitchen, unwrapped presents, hungry kids (did I mention that their chocolate bowl-licking turned out to be supper since I sorta forgot about fixing a meal?) and two dozen disgusting-looking cupcake cones to show for it. Will I ever learn???

Now where's the number to that cookie shop?